The two chapters analyzed are the works of William Paley, an English clergyman, Doctor of theology at Cambridge University, as well as the author of the fundamental work Natural Theology. Paley’s natural theology is based on the popular idea of the world as a mechanism for his time. This is a universal explanatory metaphor: on the one hand, the mechanism has a rational structure, its parts are in mutual subordination and adapted to perform certain tasks. On the other hand, a mechanism is not an independent entity: it is the sum of its parts, constructed in a strictly defined way (Paley 45). The specificity of this design is a consequence of the idea of the creator of the mechanism, and it is also able to say a lot about the author of this idea. Finally, the mechanism is fundamentally not self-sufficient, it acts at the behest of the external will, fulfilling the tasks assigned to it, as it was prescribed to it by its creator.
In Natural Theology, Paley paid considerable attention to the criticism of contemporary transformist concepts. In particular, he notes such a feature of adaptation as compensation. By this term, the theologian understands the replenishment of the shortcomings of the structure of the animal’s body through other organs. Paley cites as an example the short stiff neck of an elephant, which is compensated by a long and flexible trunk (Paley 47). For the theologian, this is undoubted evidence of divine design. The attempt to explain the origin of the trunk by the constant, for many generations, the desire of elephants to stretch their noses raises a question on his part. Paley wonders how an animal could have existed while the process of stretching the trunk was not completed, and what could have happened to an individual while the species was improving.
Theories of self-generation and self-development of life forms also cause severe criticism from Paley. He believes that the obvious refutation here is the correlation of living organisms with inanimate nature. If the generation principle, according to Paley, could produce an animal, it certainly could not create air, however, the properties of the animal obviously correspond to the properties of the air environment (Paley 49). Paley believes that the very emergence of hypotheses about self-generation is the result of internal psychological motives of their creators, who disagree to be content with a common, and therefore vulgar, opinion. The desire for originality forces them to reject other theories and views in order to put forward their own special position.
In William Paley’s understanding of the world, the proof of God’s existence from the presence of a design is natural and obvious. God is the creator of the world mechanism and the sole guarantor of its reasonableness, reliability and stability. The God of natural theology is the logical conclusion from the natural philosophical study of the world and its ultimate principle. Paley understands God as an eternal, self-sufficient and necessarily existing Being, possessing omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence (Paley, 46). The evidence of this is the specificity of the world order, that is, the simple fact that the world is exactly like this, and not another. According to Paley, the world was created according to a single design and according to a single plan. However, the blind process of evolution can act as the creator of complex organisms observed by humans. It can also be modeled on a computer, for example, on the Biomorph program.
The principle of self-development of living forms from the simplest to the most complex by natural selection leads to the appearance of the highest complexity from the original simplicity. It is this complexity that should be admired. This is just a faceless law of nature, brilliantly discovered and justified by Charles Darwin in his work on the origin of species by natural selection (Paley, 45). Modern biochemistry, genetics, the idea of evolution, can be used as a counterargument to the theologian’s point of view. Paley considers the emergence of life through the prism of faith, which is seen behind the order in the world as the Creator of the universe. The same order may be the reason for the recognition of the metaphysical principle of nature, which cannot be proved using the tools of modern biology. Thus, the highest order for Paley alone is a direct proof of intelligent design, but it can also be the result of a long evolution that takes place without the participation of divine forces.
Natural theology contains a number of provisions explicitly taken into account by Darwin when creating the theory of natural selection. First of all, it is the concept of uniformitarianism associated with the unity of the laws and forces of nature. It became the basis for the rejection of catastrophism and opened the way to the natural science study of the events of the distant geological past. The extent of Paley’s influence on Darwin is expected to be determined in the future by comparative cognitive and textual analysis of their works (Paley, 49). Science leads to an ever deeper and more versatile knowledge of the world. Based on this knowledge, natural theology tries to discover new facets in God, who thus acts as the ultimate formula of the universe. It proceeds precisely from knowledge about the world and in no way aims to impose certain a priori ideas on scientific understanding.
Work Cited
Paley, William. Natural Theology. Gold and Lincoln, 1863.